Woodstock
by Lonicera Japonica
Summary: Crowley runs into Aziraphale at Woodstock. Rated for mentions of drug use. Written for Shadow Valkyrie.


Crowley was getting tired of the hippies.

All things considered, Woodstock should have been an ideal place to get some good tempting done, and for a while it had been, but by now most of the LSD was out and everyone had moved on to marijuana. Pot-heads, Crowley had learned, were notoriously difficult to tempt, simply because they did not feel particularly motivated to do much of anything other than be at peace with their fellow man.

"How exactly is a demon supposed to get any work done in these conditions?" he grumbled, side-stepping to avoid a young woman who appeared to be whirling enthusiastically for no apparent reason.

"I hear ya, man," said another young person beside him, with the air of one who is incredibly and profoundly stoned. "It's The Man, man. Can't get a job 'cause The Man is keepin' us down."

"Did you perhaps stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, the reason you are unemployed is that you are, as the saying goes, high as a kite?" said another voice from somewhere beyond the stoner. Crowley recognized that voice. It was utterly out of place; prim and proper and British and decidedly sober. There was something vaguely angelic about it; a certain note that Crowley could detect even through the haze of marijuana that was beginning to cloud his senses simply because he had been standing around in a haze of it for two days.

"Aziraphale?" he said, leaning back to look over the hippie's tie-dye-clad shoulder. Someone else leaned back as well and looked at him with astonished blue-gray eyes.

"Crowley, my dear, is that you?" the angel inquired, for it was, indeed, Aziraphale. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you," Crowley retorted, incredulous. Was the angel wearing a police uniform? Yes, the demon's reefer-clouded brain decided, he was.

"Well, I'm…" Aziraphale began, and trailed off. He looked around helplessly. "I don't know, honestly. I had a plan when I got here, but it doesn't seem to be having the desired effect."

"I know how you feel," Crowley mumbled. He gave the young man still standing between them a glare that could not be misinterpreted by even the most baked of brains, and the intimidated hippie scuttled off in search of more illegal substances. "432 of them freaked out on bad acid trips, and that seems to be about all I can do." He sighed dejectedly and sat down on a conveniently-manifested log, gesturing for the angel to do the same, and he did.

"Er, I believe that would be 400, now," Aziraphale corrected, almost guiltily. "I managed to subdue some of them. It's still an impressive number," he added, at the demon's accusatory glare.

"I never would have figured you for a volunteer cop," Crowley said at length, eyeing the angel in his uniform that, though the same as the ones worn by all the other policemen, somehow managed to look more outdated than the others. "I can't believe you're here at all, actually."

"Well, someone has to keep you out of trouble," said Aziraphale, and Crowley smirked. They sat in silence for a moment, and the angel looked at his companion with a raised eyebrow. "My dear, are you wearing red glasses?"

"Rose-colored," Crowley corrected, adjusting said glasses on the bridge of his nose and flashing the angel a grin. "Like them?"

"They make your eyes look orange," Aziraphale replied, not actually answering the question, and made a gesture that prevented a portable toilet from toppling over on an unsuspecting hippie's head. He turned back, looking out at the stage, and made a face. "I must say, some of this…_music_ is absolutely intolerable. Who are these people and what are they singing?"

"The Who," Crowley said absently, waving his hand at a distant pasture and unlatching the fence that held the cows in. That should stir something up. When he looked back, Aziraphale was apparently paying close attention to the song, squinting at the stage. The demon listened in as well.

"Why can't we have eternal life,  
And never die,  
Never die?  
In the place up above you grow feather wings and you fly round and round,  
With a harp singing hymns.

And down in the ground you grow horns and a tail and you carry a fork,  
And burn away.

Why can't we have eternal life, And never die,  
Never die?"

"Well," Aziraphale remarked, sitting up straight. "That's rather inaccurate, isn't it?"

"Don't look at me, they write their own rubbish," Crowley said as he stood up. "Look, neither of us is getting any real work done. Allow me to tempt you someplace a bit quieter, perhaps with less of a narcotic haze?"

"Is your car anywhere around?" Aziraphale asked, getting to his feet.

"17 miles back, parked behind a tree," Crowley said mournfully, and grimaced at the angel's bemused smirk. With an impatient snap of the demon's fingers, they were gone.

Ironically, the case of pneumonia, the diabetic coma, and all three of the tracheotomies occurred after Crowley's departure, and when Aziraphale left, the hippies found themselves having a much better time.


End file.
